Tilbury | Curious Coast

sun up
barbed wire
waters edge
Bata Shoes
upstream
rust
drawbridge
heads down
gone fishing
Gravesend
the call to prayer
houseboat
QE Bridge
graffitti ridge
tag
social housing ?
hidden fort
power to the people
more of Mr Bata's factory
once majestic
Bataville
dead end
1930's at its best

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CuriousCoast
Tim Baynes
Trevor Clapp
#CuriousCoast
info@curiouscoast

The offbeat, kiss-me-quick atmosphere of the East Anglian and Kent seaside and coast fascinates photographer, Trevor Clapp and watercolorist, Tim Baynes. This website records some of their trips to these extraordinary places.

We left home far too early and an empty M25 saw us in the Duck Café, 241 Dock Road in Tilbury, on the north bank of the Thames estuary for an excellent breakfast. This was a perfect place from which to explore this unique area and pick the brains of Wikipedia.

Tilbury was established in the late 1800s near a 16C fort, built by Henry VIII and ancient cross-river ferry. The ferry still runs to Gravesend. As we gazed across the Thames to Kent, the sun came up on its minarets.

Tilbury has a major deep-water port, and it contributes to ‘Tilbury Docks’ rhyming slang for socks (As in “a nice pair of Tilbury's”).

The narrowness of the Thames here made it a suitable place to construct forts for the defence of London against foreign invaders. Further along the waterfront two power stations were enjoying the sun, Tilbury A Power mothballed 1981, and Tilbury B was still going up until 2013.

Coal House Fort
Lord Palmerston, twice Prime Minister twice during the 19th century was keen to promote the idea of a defensive wall around the British Isles to protect us from the perceived European threat. Coal House Fort, a few miles to the East, was part of the plan. And it served in both World Wars.

Our final port of call (no pun intended) was the former The Bata shoe factory in East Tilbury. This building is all that remains of an industrial estate in Essex, which produced shoes for over 70 years. Founded in 1932 by Tomáš Baťa, from Czechoslovakia.

In 1933 he added Bata houses for workers were built, set among gardens, shops and public buildings in the modernist style. "Bata-ville" had all the services of town, including a theatre, sports facilities, hotel, restaurant, grocery and butcher shops, post office, and a newspaper.